


"It's Not the Waking, It's the Rising"

by Isala_Vhenan



Series: Dragon Age Oneshots [13]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isala_Vhenan/pseuds/Isala_Vhenan
Summary: a prompt response from my tumblr where Isala deals with her regret over her impulse decision to have Solas remove her vallaslin
Series: Dragon Age Oneshots [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718812
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	"It's Not the Waking, It's the Rising"

Every glimpse of that face in the mirror was like an arrow through her heart. 

Each time she saw her own reflection she felt a shame that rivaled the humiliation she had felt in the Temple of Mythal, being told she was not one of the People. 

What she confronted was her own mirror image, and yet it was not her face. 

He had stolen her face.

Sometimes she still traced the designs on her skin, missing the faint sensation that something had been there; the knowledge of blood ink on the surface. She still felt a moment of shock and confusion any time she caught a glimpse of her own face. 

_Her_ own face? Was it hers anymore? 

In that moment of revelation she had reacted; so sickened and dismayed by the idea that the marks of pride in her skin could be slave markings that she had consented to their removal. 

But she hadn’t been fully aware; like a sleepwalker still in the fog of dreaming. 

And still he had taken it. And left. 

Crying by the water had done nothing to soothe the ache; her own reflection seemed to stare back at her with accusing eyes, branded with the proof of her betrayal. When she had seen her own face-- _her own face?_ \--staring back at her, bare like a child or an outsider, the grief was for a different kind of loss. 

She had let him mold her into someone foreign in a way that hurt far worse than his betrayal. She barely recognized herself. Everything distinctive about her appearance seemed to have faded; the stark absence of what she had earned and treasured like a screaming proclamation of her mistake.

The world kept moving despite her standing still and she’d had time to think, time to process. The agonizing ache of anguish and shame were soon joined by the sharp fire of rage and indignation. 

He had seen it in the Fade. He had heard it in the Fade. He knew, he said; _he_ knew everything and her people were wrong. The People were wrong. He _knew_???

He himself acknowledged that the Fade was a complex vortex of memories, interpretation, perception, and the melding of different times and places but he still said _he knew_? And she had believed him.

Every time she looked in the mirror she was reminded of what he “ _knew_ ”. What he had pushed to make _her_ new, and faded. For whom? It certainly wasn’t for her.

The markings of her people were no longer slave markings, they hadn’t been for ages. How could she have been so _foolish_? How could she have been so _thoughtless_? How could she have believed in him so _blindly_? 

_Years_ working towards earning the right to undertake the ritual. _Hours_ purifying herself and meditating on the Creators and the ways of the Dalish; the immense sensation of pride and hope so powerful she had felt drunk on it. The pride in the Keeper’s eyes as they applied the blood writing, that first touch like a needle or flame beneath her skin, pricking and burning and pushing against her as if resisting this new melding, only to then flow as if the most natural course was to embellish her skin. No sound cry her; the only sound the movement of her mentor and the blood being lulled into her skin.

The tears were not from the pain, but the _awakening_. 

And he had _stolen_ it. He had _desecrated_ it. He had _erased_ it. Erased _her_.

They weren’t slave markings. They never had been among the Dalish; the knowledge and history that had been lost in this sense had meant her people created a better meaning, a greater purpose, a kinder practice. This was true. How many other things he and others insisted were wrong would be in harmony with this realization? How else had the modern elves molded and shaped the Old Ways into new ways without even realizing? 

Why did she have to realize it _now_? _After_ her moment had passed? After he’d taken her place?

She desperately wanted to feel again that first prick of pain, that gentle fire beneath her skin, that face in her reflection; the her she recognized and had been learning to love. 

_Erased_.

There was no clan she could go to in order to reclaim her face. No way anyone would spare her the time to go on a journey for what to them would likely seem an incomprehensible reason. No way he would reverse the process even when she had begged. 

When she found the relic and realized what it meant she’d had to suppress the emotions that had threatened to escape her; like choking on blood or tears. She held it gingerly so as not to damage or blemish this invaluable treasure she had found. When she brushed away the age and veil of time’s passage to once again read the Elvish that outlined her salvation she had felt as though she might scream.

When she purified her body and skin, and she ruminated on the Creators and the ways of her people, and she faced that cruel reflection she felt once more the peace and the pride she’d felt all those years ago. When she first dipped the implement into the gold pool held in the intricate bone-carved cup and pressed the sharp point to her skin she felt an elation she had not felt in decades. 

How could she have ever let him tell her what freedom is? What freedom should look like for her people? What freedom should feel like for them after centuries of violence and abuse? Because he “ _knew”_?

When she looked into the mirror _she_ knew. She greeted a new face, but a familiar face; one that could change as she changed, shift with the fluidity and flexibility she desired, one that heralded her as one of the People and would not mark her as severed any longer. 

This reflection stared back with no hidden reprehension in their eyes; no accusation or shame. There was, instead, recognition and the quiet peace of someone who had seen and experienced much. Someone who had made mistakes and had regrets. Someone who had been marked by pride; of their own and of others, but did not shy away from their past. Someone who had felt shame but was not bound by it; who had betrayed themselves but was not ruined by it.

Someone who would not abandon their people.

Someone who would face change.

Isala stared at the golden arches of Ghilan’nain’s vallaslin curling above her brows once again, the embellishment on her chin moving as she smiled. The feeling of wholeness was so rich and overwhelming that her surroundings blurred.

Through her tears, she saw the reflection smiling back.

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea that there are temporary/non-permanent vallaslin options. I'm not sure whether they would need to be applied by a Keeper or if it would still be the full sacred rite to apply them by oneself, but the concept is still really appealing.


End file.
